Back to the Coast Guard's Future

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen took the unusual step of sharing a highly-critical assessment of a key Coast Guard modernization program with an audience at the National Press Club Friday:

Let me share with you a detailed report that would trouble any senior leader regarding a high-profile shipbuilding program. The report states the initial construction costs of the new fleet of cutters will be much higher than projected; delivery will almost certainly be delayed; and the cutters will not carry out all the functions they were originally designed to carry out… An early attempt to reconfigure the vessel was so poorly done we were forced to remove it from service without obtaining any value for the taxpayer money invested… During machinery trials, the captain reported: "never has a vessel left a port so badly qualified to encounter seas."

While it sounds a lot like Allen is referring to the now-scuttled patrol boat debacle under the Deepwater program, the report was written in 1845, when the Revenue Marine, the Coast Guard’s predecessor organization, was attempting to shift from sail to steam.

As Allen said, “Change is hard.”

--Katherine McIntire Peters